True Crime: The Unabomber

Imagine having a blog and not making a post in 7 months... Oh wait. A lot has happened in this last 7 months. I finished my second year of college AND started my third year, had the best summer of my life, and along the way changed my future career plans and dropped organic chemistry halfway through the semester - but those life events are for a different blog.

Because of this 7 month anniversary of not writing, I've had a lot of time to think about the next blog I wanted to post and thought why not create a post about one of my favorite true crime stories - the Unabomber.

Who was the Unabomber?

The Unabomber's real name is Ted Kaczynski. He got his infamous name, the Unabomber, from sending bombs in packages to universities and airlines. (UNABOM = university and airplane bomber). Ted was not your average terrorist. He was meticulous, smart, and went through traumatic events growing into his adulthood that formed him into the imprisoned genius he is today.

Kaczynski was very intelligent. It's been proven that he most likely had an IQ of 167 as a 5th grader (in comparison, Stephen Hawking's IQ is said to be 160). During middle and high school, Ted was bullied quite a bit but in high school, he spent lots of his time in academic clubs, like math, German, and biology clubs. His insanely high IQ and his involvement in school got him a scholarship from Harvard at the age of 16, where he eventually graduated with his B.A. in Math. While studying at Harvard, Ted Kaczynski was apart of a research study that would change his life.

The Harvard Psychology Study (1960s)

During Ted's second year of college, at the age of 17, he volunteered over 200 hours in a research study done by Psychologist Henry Murray. This study was to examine the effects of stress on the human psyche or the human mind - the conscious and unconscious. The volunteers were asked to write essays on their current worldwide and personal philosophy. After submitting, they were interviewed and asked to expand more on these beliefs.

During their interviews, the volunteers were strapped down, wired to electrodes, and forced to sit in front of bright lights while being interrogated by Murray and other researchers about their ideals and beliefs. Murray and his colleagues would take the participants personal beliefs, skew them, and then convince them that their beliefs were wrong. Murray would also include that the volunteers' friends and family believed that their perspectives would be "fixed" by Murray. Henry Murray explained that he wanted these interrogations to be "verbally abusive" and "vehement" to mimic police interrogations.

Kaczynski, having done this study for 2 years, was mentally and emotionally abused during the duration of this study. This study got so out of hand that people started to conspire that it was apart of Project MKUltra, which was part of the CIA mind control program to get people to confess about crimes and drugs.

His Professional Career and New Lifestyle

After graduating from Harvard, Kaczynski got his masters and doctorate of math from the University of Michigan. He then went on to teach math at the University of California, Berkley where his students disliked him and stated that they felt uncomfortable around him. After 2 years of teaching, he resigned and started living with his parents for 2 years.

Kaczynski eventually moved out of his parents basement, moved to Montana and built himself a remote cabin where he said he could live a "simple life". In this cabin, he did not have running water or electricity and wanted to become self-sufficient. He taught himself survival skills, like hunting, fishing, and harvesting plants for edible fruits. While getting settled, he started sabotaging nearby businesses and developments for taking away the wildlife in the area and "not allowing him to live peacefully by making the area more urbanized".

The Bombings

About 8 years after he started living in his remote cabin, the bombings started. These killings lasted 17 years where Kaczynski killed 3 people and injured 23. He made a total of 16 hand-made bombs which were either mailed or hand delivered.

The first two bombs were delivered to professors that worked at Northwestern University in Illinois. The next bomb was placed in the cargo of an airplane which luckily, had a faulty timing mechanism, so it only smoked. This was when the FBI got involved and labeled this case "UNABOM". The Unabom task force was made up of 150 people.

After 9 years and 12 bombs delivered, the Unabomber went dormant for 6 years (making a total of 17 years) after an eye witness was able to help the task force create their first sketch of Ted.

In every delivery of a bomb he sent to either a university or an airline, he would leave false clues. One of them was that he labeled everything "FC" which they thought were his initials. He would also send tips to big newspapers to give the task force false leads. Because of these false clues, the FBI had a completely wrong profile on him for years; they thought that he was an airline worker with little to no education.

After his very last bombing, he created a manifesto and sent it to the FBI.

The Unabomber's Manifesto

Ted's manifesto was a 35,000 word essay titled "Industrial Society and Its Future". The main purpose of his manifesto was to educate people on his theory of the growth of technology. He believed that technology has a destabilizing effect on society, it makes life unfulfilling, and causes widespread psychological suffering. When Ted sent the manifesto to the FBI, he demanded them to publish it or he would send out another bomb.

Kaczynski's mom and brother saw the now published manifesto and noticed similarities in Ted's writing. They compared it to a few of his college essays and thought it was too close for comfort. Ted's brother, David, hired a private investigator. With the evidence that the PI found, David sent the evidence, along with letters that Ted has written him, to the task force. When the evidence reached the FBI, profiler James R. Fitzgerald used forensics linguistics to discover similarities. Eventually, Fitzgerald found that the Unabomber was trying to target scientists, forestry people, and airlines, which completely changed the profile the FBI had created. This new profile Fitzgerald was able to create led to the arrest of Ted Kaczynski.

Kaczynski's Arrest

Ted was found in his cabin and arrested. Right before being found guilty, Ted was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He eventually was charged with 10 counts of illegal transport, mailing, and usage of bombs along with 3 counts of murder. He received 8 life sentences in solitary confinement and is currently being held at the supermax federal prison in Florence, Colorado (where he has made friends with two other terrorists responsible for the World Trade building bombing in 1993 and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995).

And that, my friends, is the story of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.

There is a really good show on Netflix called Manhunt: Unabomber about the profiler, James R. Fitzgerald, and how he used forensic linguistics to profile Ted. If you need another show to watch to avoid studying or doing homework, that's the one.

Today's Blog Post Bop:

"Bowie" by Marc E. Bassy

Lover of True Crime,

Ariana J. Bagley